Our Italian friends who let their house have received the following mail from someone in the UK who wants to book with them. They have asked me to explain it to them becuase they don't understand. I'm not sure I do either, but quite honestly it seems very strange to me that the person can't cash the cheque themself. Or are they saying they will send you the cheque for 4.000 pounds and you keep the rest till they come! What do you think?


We have just had a meeting with our sponsors/company and after careful consideration we like to inform you that your offer of euros a week totalling ..... euros for the 2 weeks is fantastic and accepted by us, Please have it reserved for us .

We were handed a group vacation package in order of a Certified Bank Cheque of (£4,070)Pounds by our company to cover costs of the accommodation/ car rental services etc for all the 6 persons but due to circumstances 2 persons in our crew opted for a different destination and will not be able to make the trip any more.

I will not be able to make a deposit separately because all the money came in one cheque package, Therefore i have been instructed to send you the Cheque, so when you receive the check payment you are required to deduct the cost of your accommodation services and keep the balance of the money which had already been designated for other logistics arrangements for us all.
We will now be using part of the balance during our stay and I will give you further instructions on how to use the remaining balance. I need you to confirm this and provide the following information:

(1) YOUR FULL NAME .as will appear on check ,
(2) YOUR ADDRESS and
(3) YOUR PHONE NUMBER. For better communication[/I]

ITS A BIG BIG SCAM

+1
Yes it's a big scam for sure

It clearly wasnt written by a native English speaker either.

You can read about it here.

http://www.the-gower.com/home/isr.htm

They send a cheque to you for 6 people and ask you to refund them for the two not coming. The cheque to you bounces but some people have unfortunately fallen for the scam and sent a good refund.

thanks for this link it m,akes more clear how these scammers work

The same scam is common in the US for people sending excessive checks from overseas for things posted for sale on-line, typically cars (who on earth buys a used car in another country "sight unseen" ), where the fraudster asks you to deposit the (foreign) check and send the excess back to them. It takes several weeks to return the check to the bank it is ostensibly drawn on, but bizarrely, per the "ever helpful" US banking regs, account holders are allowed to draw the funds ahead of clearing if the check is an "official check" (i.e. a bank draft or cashiers check). When the check is bounced, the customer is "out" several thousand dollars, and the US banking regs make the person depositing a check specifically responsible for ensuring the validity of checks they deposit.

Same in the UK. For some time it was mainly used cars etc. The trouble is it can take months sometimes before the cheque bounces. All UK banks have a regulation that says something along the lines of "Should a cheque you present be subsequently dishonoured, the Bank will debit your account with the appropriate amount" Even "cleared' cheques can be rejected in due course once they finally get physically back to the issuing Bank.
The clue is that usually the scammers ask you to remit the balance via Western Union or similar.

Thanks everyone for their input. It has certainly been an eye opener for me who didn't know this kind of thing existed, still live and learn and thank goodness there are still helpful people on BE that put you on the right track. I've told my friend to report it to the letting agency they use.

It can be a good idea to check the source of an original email using a free web program. For instance a "Canadian professor" who wanted to rent my house was sending his emails from Nigeria

Could you please give me the link to the program you mentioned?

[QUOTE=nicktonight;11179905]It can be a good idea to check the source of an original email using a free web program. For instance a "Canadian professor" who wanted to rent my house was sending his emails from Nigeria[/QUOTE]

I agree, from the wording I would say Nigeria too. I am told is done in the UK for anything from second hand car to puppies. BE VERY AWARE !

I can't remember what site I used but this site seems OK: http://whatismyipaddress.com/trace-email

NB the first (easy) step is to find the complete header for the email which depends on your email provider

This is a classic '419 scam' (so-called as it's the Nigerian criminal code under which such scams are prosecuted):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/419_scams

If you want a bit of fun, have a look at these 'scambaiter' sites, where participants, pretending to be taken-in by the scam, attempt to make fun of the would-be scammers by getting them to do silly things with the promise that the dosh they seek to extract will be forthcoming (which of course it never is) – with sometimes hilarious consequences! Here's a link to one of the numerous scambaiter sites. (Warning: Some pages on this site may cause offence):
http://www.419eater.com

definitely a scam i sometimes rent out a property i have in tuscany and a couple of years ago cheque arrived for 4500 euros and the person who was russian asked me to cash the cheque and keep my share of 1000 euros and send the rest back which was to repay the agency needless to say i replied saying due to anti mafia laws i couldn't cash that amount but i would hold on to it until they arrived i never heard another word